Cutting Out Meat | Resolutions

4.1.17

If you read yesterday's post (link here) then you'll already know this but one of my resolutions for 2017 was to cut out meat. Now if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you'll have seen posts around summer time about me going vegetarian and for a while I did. I was good at it, I was kicking ass then I got ill and it all went horrendously wrong. Let's get into it below!

So not to be overly dramatic but I got quite seriously ill pretty quickly. I was constantly being sick, feeling sick, looking sick and basically living in my bed when I wasn't working as I had very little energy. Cutting out meat was the only major change I made so I decided to go back to eating it to see if it was the cause for my illness, unfortunately it was. My bounce back was almost instant which made me feel great but also completely shit. I avoided talking about it on social media as I was quite fearful of the potential backlash of my 'failure'. I just continued eating the meat, although still pretty cut down, I wasn't tanning entire chickens or anything (I mean if you enjoy that then go for it I guess) but feeling super crappy about it and not too sure who to turn to. I felt better physically but mentally I felt awful.

Another reason I didn't stick at it was another fear, I was scared to get so ill again. I knew I didn't want to eat meat anymore. It's just not something I'm interested in, there are enough meat-free options that animals don't have to die for me to eat. In saying that, I will be taking it super slow this time round and easing myself into it. I've been toying with going pescatarian for a while then transitioning over to complete vegetarian so I can keep an eye on my health. I've also picked up multi-vitamins to see if that can also help me. Basically I need as much help as I can get and if you have any tips to pass on please don't hesitate to!

Similar to my Losing Weight post, I won't be throwing out any meat containing products and will instead use them up (yes I have morals but I also don't have an endless supply of money) but we have been purchasing vegetarian and often vegan choices, which have been taking less time to cook bonus and have been pretty damn tasty! There are quite a few Chinese supermarkets quite close to where I live that are packed to the ceiling with vegetarian options. At a fraction of the cost that other supermarkets charge, I can see it becoming a regular spot for food shops. Something I'm learning the more I read up on cutting out animal products in my diet are the amount of suprising foods that don't contain any byproducts. Hilariously enough, the Chicken Thins in the picture above contain no chicken! I find it really interesting that you can get meat flavoured things without using meat, maybe I'm being naive but surely this is cheaper than the cost of raising, killing and preparing animals?

Like I said, I will be eating any meat containing products still in the flat but that list is dwindling and there wasn't even that much on it to begin with. The only things I can think of that are left are a box of knock off Lucky Charms, the mountains of gelatine containing sweets we got at christmas and possibly some frozen products (the freezer so badly needs defrosted soon, eurgh) but as soon as they are all finished up, they won't be getting repurchased. Instead I'll be replacing all of my meats with Quorn/Linda McCartney/any other substitutes I can find and like.

I also want to start cooking more so if you have any website recommendations or even recipes of your own that are vegetarian/vegan that you think I should try, let me know in the comments below!